Cultivating gratitude is one of the best practices to help our spiritual life. Although we often are oblivious to this fact, everyone always has many reasons to be grateful. When we look with gratitude at what is unfolding in our … Continue reading →
Cultivating gratitude is one of the best practices to help our spiritual life. Although we often are oblivious to this fact, everyone always has many reasons to be grateful. When we look with gratitude at what is unfolding in our … Continue reading →
This is the second in a series on The Five Diamond Points That Penetrate To the Very Heart of the Matter, teaching given by Rev. Master Koten of Lions Gate Priory. It primarily addresses the first point and speaks of … Continue reading →
(This article is based on a transcription of a talk given at the Lay Ministers’ retreat at Shasta Abbey in 2017) [Rev. Master Haryo asks] “Would someone get me some water, please?” [A glass of water is brought]. “Hmm… I … Continue reading →
I recently came across the phrase “the mind of poverty” and was struck by its power. It is the mind that is impoverished. We are not speaking about material poverty, but rather emotional and spiritual poverty – the sense that … Continue reading →
It is so painfully obvious that absolutely everything is impermanent. Over and over, our clinging to that which is impermanent is the cause of dissatisfaction in our lives, so much so that we humans seem hard-wired to re-experience this dissatisfaction, … Continue reading →
In the chapter on the First Column of Light in Reverend Master Jiyu’s book How to Grow a Lotus Blossom, there is the image of a person standing in a pillar of light underneath a dark cloud, looking up towards … Continue reading →
There is something that calls us to meditation and this call persists as we go on. There is something deep within us that we know to be true, and know to be good, but we can feel as if we … Continue reading →
The Precepts point to and express a fundamental shift in our point of view. Training seems to me to involve choosing a certain way of living or relating to the world—a choice that is repeated daily, almost endlessly. There is … Continue reading →
Almost always when we talk about how our meditation practice can really not be separated from working with the Precepts, someone will lament how hard that is. And we all agree, it is hard if you wish to label it … Continue reading →